Hall of Novice - Final Challenge - Gladiator??

[YuRagnell]

Hi! This is officially my first time being in an MMPORG, I've always played swordsman characters if I had a choice but not necessarily like this so in short, I'm new to it!The first Raid I did I think we did fine (I HOPE SO) but I also have not completed the Hall of Novice, a tool that's useful informative wise. I don't want to be a player that just swings without knowing what I'm doing because that'll burden other players!
I get so lost at the first part with the Archer continuously getting killed which means I'm not doing the class' job, and I'm using Flash, trying what I've learned to acquire enmity but she still dies at the LEAST in the second section when I have to attract three enemies. If any of you that are new or are gladiators and did this, do you have any tips? I don't plan on giving up the class whatsoever it'll take lots of effort but I'm committed to beating this eventually! I'm thankful for any advice you can give a painfully new player!

[Legion88]

Hi, only Flash won't help you much in this, try your enmity combo on the archers target and use flash just to hold the enmity of the rest of the enemies. shield lob as a starter is always good. Always try to let the enemies look away from the rest of the "party" cause they don't dodge AoE markers.

Hope i could help you and good luck.

[Enkidoh]

Welcome to Eorzea!

Sadly I did that as a level 60 PLD (doing the GLA Hall of the Novice quests when they were added in a patch), but from what I remember, the idea is to lure enemies away from the npc using Shield Lob (gained with the level 15 GLA class quest), and once they are close, use Flash cycling in with Fast Blade and Savage Blade combo. I can't remember if you can use cross-class abilities in that though, otherwise I would suggest also cross-class Cure from CNJ and casting it on the npc to help keep them alive. But if you're using Shield Lob to grab the enemies quickly and then following up with Flash to keep the targets focused on you the ARC should be okay.

The key to succeeding in the Hall of the Novice is actually to follow the directions of what is being asked of you to do - in this case, build up hate by using the GLA's standard enmity tools: Shield Lob, Flash, and Fast Blade+Savage Blade. Provoke may work also with Flash immediately after, but I am not sure it works on protecting npcs - I think it only works in party situations sadly.

Either way, don't give up! You can do it!

[YuRagnell]

To both of you, it took me a while and a few tries again, but I managed to do it! I'm positive if I hadn't come to ask for help and you guys hadn't shown up that I wouldn't have gotten this done! I think I understand things a lot better and I'm really thankful for you taking time to teach me something like this! It made my day actually getting it done! I wouldn't have gotten it done so fast (if at all) without getting some experienced advice. I guess I got really determined with this hopefully I can be as useful as can be with helping people out in parties, huh? I'll try my best anyway! I was hesitant to ask but I'm really glad I did. Thank you so much, you guys! So grateful!

[LunaFaye]

I love the hall of novice, however I can't blame you of not understanding the last part of it. Glad you got it done so. Let's face it, when you enter as a drk it tells you to use unleash, followed by the weapon combo. As warrior it tells you to use overpower, followed by the combo. But as PLD as funny as it is, the system is more like, well you're on your own buddy, good luck. Thought that was real funny since it seems that even SE has no idea how to tank on a gladiator/pld.

[Frizze]

Glad you overcame the obstacle, and welcome to the game! Make sure you remember to use that new piece of jewelry you got for the exp bonus, and dont lose it because you can use it for any and all other classes you decide to level up later(even if you dont want to speed up leveling your first class, keep it for the others because eventually you will likely want the boost). The novice hall lessons are good, but luckily in real groups you will mostly deal with people who play smarter then the NPCs that you got matched up with. The NPCs just pick a target and follow their attack logic. Meanwhile a person can dodge aoes, switch to higher priority targets, coordinate attacks for best results, and strategize their way through much more difficult situations.

[Teiren]

I love the hall of novice, however I can't blame you of not understanding the last part of it. Glad you got it done so. Let's face it, when you enter as a drk it tells you to use unleash, followed by the weapon combo. As warrior it tells you to use overpower, followed by the combo. But as PLD as funny as it is, the system is more like, well you're on your own buddy, good luck. Thought that was real funny since it seems that even SE has no idea how to tank on a gladiator/pld.

I haven't done Hall of the Novice, but that's really weird because Gladiator is by far the simplest tank. Maybe because it's simple they expect people to not have to be told what to do? But that's not fair for brand new players who haven't played MMORPGs before, which is literally exactly what Hall of the Novice is for.


Anyway, to the OP:
When you're in dungeons, don't worry about holding aggro on every single thing 100% of the time. Almost nothing is very threatening until the Level 30s, and even then things aren't that bad so don't feel like a failure if you lose aggro sometimes. Just trying is enough. However, by Level 41 you really do have to hold aggro on everything. Ironically, at the same time it becomes dramatically easier to hold aggro because of a certain ability learned at Level 40, so it works out.

You can also monitor the enmity you're generating. The bars under people's class icons in the Party List display their current enmity on your target as a %, so naturally your bar should be full, and you can see when other people are about to get aggro. Speaking of which, that's what those colored icons are in the Enemy List on the left of the screen. Flashing red square means you have top enmity on that enemy, which means aggro. Red-Orange triangle means you're at about 75-90% of enmity needed to take aggro, yellow triangle means you're at about 50-75%, and anything below that is a small green dot. Just think of it like a stoplight, though as a tank you want to be at full red.

Oh, and maybe you noticed this during Hall of the Novice, but those flying arrows show what someone has initially targeted with an action, so sometimes you can follow those arrows to the target and know that's going to be their target.

[YuRagnell]

So don't really worry too much on the aggro/enmity thing until level 30, yeah? Should I focus primarily on just kind of making sure I stay upfront and clear enemies like, well..a tank. It sounds pretty challenging once you get to 41 though, holding everyone's attention by then -- and the parties are assigned one tank/type of class, yes? I've only done one raid since I want to keep practicing. But yeah, definitely understand that real players will provide more into tanking in general. I use a controller so I'm often hesitant to check my menu's for anything during a fight. So the goal when I hit the forties is really to get everyone to that red? So Flash for sure? I think I did notice that on the arrow part, so it's a lot about observation too with seeing enmity and when to focus on the next enemy. Am I wrong in assuming there's just one tank to a raid? That's how it went I've only done one so! Thank you for this!

[YuRagnell]

Thank you so much for this! I heard that this was really useful once you hit above twenty but it just seems pretty useful overall to me so far! I'm leveling a lot faster than I did! And that is a good idea since while I plan to stay Gladiator if I wanted to learn moves that could help make me more proficient I could use this as well! Thanks for letting me know about it! And yes, definitely would prefer real people over NPCS, although I definitely don't want to be one of the people who don't play smart, although it will probably be trial and error for me! I guess I am nervous most for raids in regards to not doing things properly and keeping everyone away so I've been holding off doing them until my sister catches up with me. I can't be sure but I think I did alright in Satasha. I kind of laugh because basically it felt the whole time in the Hall it said 'MAKE THEM HATE YOU ALOT' so I just was like 'wow i have never been so eager to get fictional enemies to hate me'!

[Hasrat]

The role of a tank in dungeon runs is more like a shield. You're not so much clearing the enemies as you are just keeping their attention. One thing you'll want to get the hang of is positioning. From the sound of it, that may have been one problem in your Hall of Novice quest. While you have the enemy's attention, you'll want to try to have them facing away from the rest of the party. This way, if/when they use a big area skill, it's aimed at just you, and the rest of the party won't have to worry (though do be sure you step out of the way before you get hit too; those attacks can hurt). With other players, this isn't a huge problem for the early levels, as most players will be able to dodge if they need to, but obviously that archer NPC wasn't quite that bright (despite the fact that the Novice quests for all DPS teach you to avoid those area attacks...).Another skill you'll be developing is switching targets as you attack. While Flash does generate enmity to everything around you, you'll also want to make sure your attack combos switch to each enemy. This goes back to keeping their attention. Focusing too much on trying to kill one enemy could lead to another losing interest and attacking your party members.

As long as you've got the fundamentals down, all you should have to do is trust your healer to keep you alive, trust your DPS to kill things quick, while they trust you to keep them all safe.